Tom
>>Because an average pre-pay user in Europe spends about US$ 10/month,
>>while an average mobile user in Japan spends about US$ 70-80/month,
>>and some a lot more than that.
>
> Comparing low-spending (i.e. prepay) European users to average-spending
> Japanese users doesn't seem to be entirely fair (UK ARPU averaged at
> $40 early this year iirc), but I get your point - thanks.
still 1/2 as much as in Japan. There is a saying: you get what you
pay for! In Japan the competition between DoCoMo, AU and Vodafone and
others is ferocious so you can expect that all are pretty efficient.
So you can't expect the same kind of overall services for 1/2 the
price in UK: who should pay the other half?
>>So DoCoMo and KDDI and Vodafone (in Japan) have a lot more money in
>>the kitty per user to subsidize nice handsets - especially for those
>>users with high billing.
>
> But these high billing users aren't unique to Japan, are they? And
> given that Japanese telcos have this pot of money from which they can
> subsidise advanced handset features, why choose to spend this on better
> quality cameras instead of other features, like faster processors for
> gaming, better video support, etc.?
It's not the carriers who make that choice!!! it's the consumers!
they decide what they pay for! You may not know this from your
UK perspective, but in Japan there are 100s of different phones
on the market, some only for a short time, for a few weeks. So
the carriers try out all the possibilities. In the end, the top
phones have sales figures of several million.
The customers decide: no carrier, no committee, no government.
If 2 million customers put good money on the table to get a
2 million pixel phone, the carriers oblige, as simple as that.
Regarding the faster gaming, better video support etc.
They do that as well!
It's not cameras or games and video!
It's cameras AND games and video!
> Particularly when these better
> quality cameraphones, some of which can't even transmit photos over
> mobile networks, don't generate any revenue for the network themselves?
That's a narrow minded view point. The business models are more
complex than that.
Gerhard
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Gerhard Fasol, PhD Eurotechnology Japan K. K.
fasol_at_eurotechnology.com http://www.eurotechnology.com/
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Received on Tue Dec 23 18:16:05 2003